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Waterloo Region Transit Developments (ION LRT, new terminal, GRT buses)

Part of the offload yesterday involved pulling 502 into Northfield Station to pass the switch to the northbound track, so that they could take it to get into the yard. My vantage point didn't give me any appreciation of what had just happened, while BBD's latest tweet makes it perfectly clear:

https://twitter.com/BombardierRail/status/915554622479192065

It's a beautiful thing.
 
Markster said:
Your first sentence contradicts your second.

Your value judgement of what I do in my spare time for my own enjoyment is not appreciated.
Click to expand...

I don't want to sound judgmental (and I'm certainly not complaining), but I always thought that vehicle sightings are more of a CPTDB thing, while UT focuses on discussing infrastructure and service.
 
KevinT said:
Part of the offload yesterday involved pulling 502 into Northfield Station to pass the switch to the northbound track, so that they could take it to get into the yard. My vantage point didn't give me any appreciation of what had just happened, while BBD's latest tweet makes it perfectly clear:

https://twitter.com/BombardierRail/status/915554622479192065

It's a beautiful thing.
Click to expand...

And that, is the first time a Metrolinx-equivalent LRV has pulled up to a platform.

@Sandpit You should see the TTC streetcar thread!

Let's just embed that photo in the thread:
LRV-Northfield.jpg
 

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This is the first runs-and-drives train of a massive new infrastructure build, sitting in a new station for the first time. To me that's beyond mere trainspotting.

(To be honest I find the endless circular debates on policy here massively tiring. Progress updates and pictures is what I come here for, and when I can contribute to that, I do so.)
 
KevinT said:
This is the first runs-and-drives train of a massive new infrastructure build, sitting in a new station for the first time. To me that's beyond mere trainspotting.

(To be honest I find the endless circular debates on policy here massively tiring. Progress updates and pictures is what I come here for, and when I can contribute to that, I do so.)
Click to expand...

Its more than that too. This is the first time in Canada an LRT transit system has been built in such a small tri-city area, in a city part of the GTHA but not Toronto.

It also utilized some good ideas in my mind, re-purposing an old rail corridor, splitting the LRT to one lane down one-way streets, NOT coming up with some fantastical mag-lev technology and instead using tried and true off the shelf methods for suburban rapid transit.

It will be even more awesome once Phase 2 comes online imo. It will really connect the area.
 
robmausser said:
Its more than that too. This is the first time in Canada an LRT transit system has been built in such a small tri-city area, in a city part of the GTHA but not Toronto.
Click to expand...

Calgary's population in 1981 when the C-Train opened was about 593,000*. Edmonton's population was about 478,000 in 1978*. Waterloo Region's population estimate at the end of 2016 was 583,500. Pretty close I would say.

* - City, not CMA population, but probably not a large difference.
 
marcus_a_j said:
Calgary's population in 1981 when the C-Train opened was about 593,000*. Edmonton's population was about 478,000 in 1978*. Waterloo Region's population estimate at the end of 2016 was 583,500. Pretty close I would say.

* - City, not CMA population, but probably not a large difference.
Click to expand...

You are comparing City to Regional population. Its really not a fair comparison.
 
you did say tri-city area.. The one argument you could make is that Cambridge is too disconnected to be included in the population - but tri-city suggests its inclusion.
 
robmausser said:
You are comparing City to Regional population. Its really not a fair comparison.
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Well, I wasn't really trying to argue your point - I brought up Calgary and Edmonton because I was curious to know what they were when their systems opened. And as innsertnamehere said, you did mention Tri-City. Besides, I would say that an LRT-system is a regional service. GRT is a Regional authority and will continue to operate iExpress routes from Cambridge to ION stations. I would say it's a fair comparison. And even if we go by your metric, sure, K-W has a lesser population, but by how much? 100,000 less than Edmonton's at the time? I'd say that's comparable. I wouldn't compare it Vancouver when the Skytrain opened (though technically Vancouver only had 450,000 in 1986, but would have to include Burnaby and New Westminster since the Skytrain went through those cities, so 615,000 for those three - Metro Vancouver had 1.2 million.)
 
marcus_a_j said:
Well, I wasn't really trying to argue your point - I brought up Calgary and Edmonton because I was curious to know what they were when their systems opened. And as innsertnamehere said, you did mention Tri-City. Besides, I would say that an LRT-system is a regional service. GRT is a Regional authority and will continue to operate iExpress routes from Cambridge to ION stations. I would say it's a fair comparison. And even if we go by your metric, sure, K-W has a lesser population, but by how much? 100,000 less than Edmonton's at the time? I'd say that's comparable. I wouldn't compare it Vancouver when the Skytrain opened (though technically Vancouver only had 450,000 in 1986, but would have to include Burnaby and New Westminster since the Skytrain went through those cities, so 615,000 for those three - Metro Vancouver had 1.2 million.)
Click to expand...
The comparisons are silly and I don't even know what point is even being attempted in making them.

If the population of the city of Edmonton was only 478,000 when they opened their line....that city also has an area of 573 sq km. so that was a density of 834 ppl/sq km.

If we are comparing that to Waterloo Region's population of 535k (is that what someone posted above).......you are talking about a density of less than half of that.
 
It's a regional project, but yeah, including Cambridge population is a bit questionable, since the line is quite disconnected from it. Sure, when Calgary and Edmonton's systems opened, they didn't serve the whole city, but they certainly served the singular business core. Cambridge is a semi-separate ecosystem.

The interesting thing to compare would be Population per System Length

Code: 
Edmonton 1978:           478,000 / 6.9 km  = 69275 people / system km
Edmonton 2017:         1,062,643 / 24.3 km = 43730 people / system km
Calgary 1981:            593,000 / 12 km   = 49416 people / system km
Calgary 2017:          1,392,609 / 59.9 km = 23248 people / system km
Waterloo Region 2017:    583,500 / 19 km   = 30710 people / system km
Kitchener-Waterloo 2017: 309,654 / 19 km   = 16297 people / system km
 
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